News of the Not So Weird
The News of the Weird’s piece on the first gay wedding behind bars in Britain (“Number Crunching,” April 23-29, 2015) although groundbreaking for its prison first, is maybe not so weird after all. The two men, reportedly both serving time for anti-gay murders, are testaments to internalized homophobia. As Karen Franklin writes in her chapter of “Stigma and Sexual Orientation: Understanding Prejudice against Lesbians, Gay Men and Bisexuals,” “Victim accounts suggest that assailants possess tremendous rage and hatred; indeed, documentation of horrific levels of brutality has led gay activists to characterize the violence as political terrorism aimed at all gay men and lesbians. Other motives for antigay violence suggested in the literature include male bonding, proving heterosexuality, and purging secret homosexual desires.”
If only these men had found social acceptance for the love in their hearts before acting out in reaction to rigidly enforced gender conformity by inflicting their hurt onto others. It is up to us to open the way for love and acceptance.
Record Store Day going strong in the Valley
I did a search on your website to see if the Advocate had written anything about what local stores are doing for Record Store Day (April 18, 2015); what a disappointment to find Garry Carra’s Nightcrawler column “Crowd Fundamentals” trumpeting the rise of crowdfunded releases after the demise of the local record store instead. It’s pretty ironic to see this claim being made the week of Record Store Day, an annual event that does in fact lead to people waiting in line outside of record stores here in the Valley, around the country, and around the world.
Yes, as Carra points out, there are a lot of record stores in the Pioneer Valley and not only that, there are a lot of record stores that have just opened up in the last few years and are doing just fine. This is not a phenomenon limited to the Valley either — CD sales continue to plunge, but sales of new vinyl records have been climbing steadily for years, and new record stores are popping up all over. In the last year, two new record pressing plants have opened to keep up with the demand for new vinyl releases.
It’s true that if you compare current sales numbers to the heyday of physical media, they are small. And it’s really cool that artists are finding ways to release music outside the label system. But unlike 10 or so years ago, when the Valley lost treasures like Main Street Records and Dynamite Records, record stores are now opening, not closing. CDs are on the way out but it’s clear that people still want physical releases. And when they want that, they increasingly reach for records.
Holyoke’s been ‘passing’ for a long time
Editor’s Note: This is a comment on staff writer Hunter Styles’ article “Course Correction: Can Holyoke fix its underperforming schools before the state takes over?” Join the conversation at www.valleyadvocate.com.
Where were all of the people who are complaining when the curriculum was going downhill? Every one was happy when their kid got a passing grade without questioning what was behind the grade. Being educated is more than marching down the aisle of a new building in a cap and gown.
